


schedule slip

by Infinitree



Series: Captain Underpants and the Confounding Chronicles of Counterpart Communication [1]
Category: Captain Underpants Series - Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)
Genre: 'its egg casserole if you squint' i say as edith Literally refers to krupp as her boyfriend In-Text, Gen, allusions to alien!edith, its my au and i get to choose the aspects of canon/popular fanon that get included in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinitree/pseuds/Infinitree
Summary: Edith worries. Krupp freaks out. They both have a heart-to-heart.
Series: Captain Underpants and the Confounding Chronicles of Counterpart Communication [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804579
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	schedule slip

**Author's Note:**

> > stevenoggsworld said: Number 3 with the sticky notes AU? (“he’s been gone for quite a while”)
> 
> Writing Edith is weirdly difficult, even though I've written similar enough characters without any challenge. This might be the most I've had to edit a fic insofar as actually adding extra dialogue as opposed to just changing up the syntax. It's not a _lot_ of changes, but still. 

The amount of adults George and Harold tolerated-- let alone trusted could only be counted on one hand. Most of those fingers were reserved for their own and each others’ parents, but even then that could go so far. Captain Underpants was a special case.

And Edith the lunch lady was in a weird grey area.

On the one hand, she stuck out like a sore thumb demeanor-wise in comparison to the rest of her coworkers. She _also_ took most of their pranks in relative stride, which was a plus in her favor. 

On the other hand, her cooking skills were on par, if not abysmally worse from the lunch ladies of yore. 

On the other _other_ hand, most of the weirdness boiled down to her knowing about Captain Underpants, but not _Know-Know_ , you know? They knew that she, at the very least _saw_ Principal Krupp strip down to his underwear and fly off to fight a bunch of talking toilets. 

On the other other other _other_ hand, she didn’t spill the beans about it, so what was that about?

Yeesh, they were running out of hands. 

With all that in mind, perhaps that was the reason why they approached her as she hovered nervously around the principal’s office.

“Hey, Miss Lunch Lady,” George gave a wave. “Uh, what’s wrong?”

Her shoulders jolted up in surprise. “Oh!--” There was a pause as she tried to remember names they never gave, before embarrassingly settling on, “You two.”

“Yup,” Harold confirmed. _“Us two,_ got it in one.”

Edith frowned, but it was clearly not directed at them. Gloved hands wrung together in a squeak-squeak. “He’s, uh. Been gone for quite a while,” she said after a moment.

Ever since the whole reveal, Krupp took an extended leave, leaving them with a substitute principal-- _which apparently was a thing,_ and was the reason why the boys were on edge for the past few days. They’ve never set foot in the office, let alone saw the substitute. The most they’ve ever seen was a single arm through the crack of the door pointed detention-wards.

And, it seems, the lunch lady was worried too.

“Uh, you-- you two get sent up to his office a lot, right?” she asked. “Did Benjam… Mr. Krupp seem alright? The last time you got sent up, I mean. Like, health-wise.”

The boys gave each other a Look. The lunch lady's expression crumpled.

“I knew I shouldn’t’ve added that haggis--”

“What? No, he just looked tired,” George clarified, conveniently standing in front of Harold and his scrunched up face of disgust.

Harold’s brows knitted together as the silence continued to stretch further and further. _Understatement of the century,_ considering the reason why. _“Anyway,”_ he interjected with an awkward clap. “Good talk! We gotta go before, you know. We’re late.”

And with that clumsy goodbye the boys scurried off to their respective classes. Edith stood alone in the now-empty hall, her gaze shifting from where the boys had been to the door that led into the principal’s office. But there was no time to linger-- she still had a job to do, after all.

Several jobs, in fact.

Besides, she could visit him after school. Now back at the cafeteria, nervous hands stirred at today’s Lunch Special.

* * *

And that was how Edith Schunn managed to wind up in the lonely house at the end of Curmudgeon Boulevard, forced to sit down on a recliner as her-- boyfriend? Partner? The former felt like too much of a Young Person Word and the latter left too many interpretations. It was one of the infuriating limits to the English language.

Regardless, Benjamin Krupp shoved the piece of paper into her face. The writing was blocky and filled with multiple misspellings that made her head spin, but the most striking thing about the letter was the last line.

In bold red sharpie-- FROM CAPTAIN. Or rather, _CAPTAI,_ since whoever wrote this ran out of room.

Oh. _Oh._

“Oh,” she muttered, tilting her head. “You know, I was kind of expecting worse penmanship.”

“You knew--” His teeth gnashed together. “And you-- you didn’t tell me?!”

She winced. “I thought you were being coy about your secret identity?”

It was a half-truth at best. She could only see her… Important Person To Her (and she winced even further at that title) disorientated after each encounter with some dastardly foe for so long until she suspected something strange was going on. And she couldn’t exactly ask those two boys that always seemed to tail him.

Well. Edith can’t be too judgemental-- she knows the value of a good secret.

The edge of his lip twitched and stopped itself from doing a full on snarl. “How long did you know?”

“Uh…” she drawled out. The tentacles under the hard-light disguise writhed uncomfortably. “Ever since our first date?”

All the color drained from Benjamin’s face.

 _“Un_ believable.” He balled the paper up into a clump as he began to pace. “My life is over.”

“Hey, that’s a little bit much, don’t you think?”

“I literally black out and turn into an idiotic superhero made by two of the worst miscreants to terrorize Jerome Horwitz,” he seethed. “If anything, this--” he gestured wildly to his face, to the angry crease in his brow and his snarl, _“-- this_ is too little.”

“Well, you can’t just be on extended leave forever,” Edith argued.

Benjamin was silent, balling up the wad of paper even tighter. His anger was slowly bleeding out as quickly as anxiety replaced it. “Well, what am I supposed to do? If this comes out, I’ll be made a laughingstock!”

Edith stood up. “Ben--”

“I’d be fired, if some stupid monster doesn’t literally fire me from a cannon--”

“Ben…”

“-- And frankly, I don’t know which is worse--”

“Benjamin Krupp, will you _let me speak?!”_

His pacing stopped. He’s never heard her that frustrated, let alone raise her voice. In that moment he swore that her eyes grew brighter, but he was so sleep deprived and stressed as it was that he didn’t think much of it.

“You are literally the most pigheaded, stubborn person I’ve ever met--”

The principal narrowed his eyes. _“Watch_ it, Schunn.”

“What did I _just_ say?” Edith said. Silence passed as she wrestled the paper ball out of his vicegrip. “-- And that’s why I know you’ll figure this out how to deal with this, somehow.”

 _The_ both _of you,_ her mind added as she began to un-ball and flatten the piece of paper. The silence stretched on as she continued. “Like, every time you come against something, what do you do?”

Benjamin shrugged noncommittally. “I dunno, _ban_ it? Give the kid detention?”

Edith gave a soft sigh. “You keep butting heads. You try to change it.”

The advice, ironically enough, seemed apt for both.

“It’s not that easy,” he retorts. “I mean, you know what I have to put up with.”

Yes, she’s all too aware of what-- or perhaps, the _two_ whats. _Three,_ if he wanted to be semantic. One of her hands ball up cautiously before reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder. “And yet you’re still principal.”

Something in Benjamin’s gaze changed. Shock moved to quiet contemplation. She couldn’t place it, but it reminded her of the _other guy,_ at least, with how… open it was. His eyes fell on the note, its creases making the messy handwriting near-incomprehensible in the light of the sunset.

Her shoulders tensed. She will be late _again,_ but this was important.

Just as quick as it appeared, one blink later, and he closes himself off again. “If this is your way of buttering me up for a raise, it isn’t going to work,” he says with a wry smile.

“Oh, you found me out,” Edith replied slyly before handing the paper back. “But seriously. Think about what I said, OK?”

Benjamin gave a grumble that she could only hope was in the affirmative.

“Listen-- it’s getting dark, so I gotta go, alright?” she made her way to the door. “If you need anything, and I mean _anything--”_

A white lie, admittedly. _Anything within reason. Anything that wouldn’t go against her Other job._

“-- You know where to find me.”

“Friday.”

She was already reaching for the doorknob. “Beg pardon?” she asked, turning around.

“I’m… I’ll be back by the end of the week, Friday.” His gaze was still lowered towards the note. This time he simply folds it up and places it in his pocket.

And despite everything, Edith beamed. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”


End file.
